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The Donatella Interview

"IF I could dress anyone I'd like to dress the Queen - she can handle anything," said Donatella Versace yesterday. "I'd put her in black - she never wears black - and add a little leather, maybe. A little rock 'n' roll."

It was a timely and headline-grabbing statement during a live interview at the Oxford University Union conducted by Tim Blanks that went some way to confound misconceptions about this bombshell blonde, come-to-bed-accented designer who - far from the caricature she is assumed to be - proved herself to be grounded and friendly, funny and open, and one who has truly overcome adversity to put Versace at the top of the fashion pile once again.

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Insightful about the effect that the tragic 1997 murder of her brother had on her work, she admitted that the signature house iconography - so prevalent in her recent collections - had been out of bounds emotionally when she first took the reins of the brand that Gianni had founded.

"At the beginning, after my brother's terrible death, all the iconography was like a sanctuary, so special, it felt untouchable," she said. "I had to find my own voice. It was only after his death that I realised how difficult the job was. With him it had been exciting and easy but all of a sudden it was completely different."

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"But you also have to remember that it was the end of the Nineties. For a while since then we all moved away from the bling we were famous for - it was too sexy, not in line with the general mood - but now, certainly in 2012, it's back; people are having fun with fashion again, so I had to find the courage to look at the past in a new perspective. Suddenly when I looked at his last collection, of 1997, I started not to be afraid anymore."

Her own personal image, she says, is in part self-protection: "Fashion is a weapon that you can use when you need it. I think my own look makes people think I'm tough but when they get to know me I'm very different. It's like armour that was useful to me in the first years after Gianni's death. It was difficult to live that pain in public - and to be compared to him when he was the genius and I was only ever the accessory. It was hard to hear people constantly say 'will she make it?' I don't mean to sound like a martyr - just to make the point that I used my personal image to hide all these emotions."

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To a rapt audience of students and a front row support team including her daughter Allegra, close friend Rupert Everett and favourite young British designers Erdem and Christopher Kane ("the best fashion designer in England - I learn so much from him, I hope he learns a little from me"), Versace admitted to a love of reality television: "I'm sure people don't have time to watch anything about me but I'd love to do a show - something with my friend Rupert Everett, wouldn't it be great!"; to being an eternal optimist and - afterwards - to having been very nervous up there "but I know Tim well enough to know that if I said anything stupid he'd make it better."

She enlivened things by recalling the time she met Elizabeth Taylor who, in fact, stole from her - "My brother collected vintage jewellery and I was wearing a ring that he'd given me - Elizabeth said in this extraordinary breathy voice: 'Darling I love your ring, may I try it?' And she didn't give it back! She put it on and breathed, 'oh darling thank you, you didn't have to do that!' But I hadn't!" - and expressed nostalgia about her days as a rock groupie following Axel Rose around: "These days there is no time for that - I'd like to watch my son play [Daniel Versace plays the guitar for a band called Nucleus], but he won't have me in the audience yet."

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ByAlice Newbold

Asked about her decision to launch a line with H&M, Versace revealed that the collaboration had given her renewed confidence in her craft: "It gave me such self esteem because we saw this amazing appetite for the brand," she said. "H&M is a fantastic, incredible company - I had no idea how they'd make my designs come to life at those prices, but they did it without restricting me at all."

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And she has her own idea about how high fashion should take on the recession: "Some say the economy means that you have to persuade people to invest in clothes - to buy less things but more expensive things. I disagree - invest in jewellery, or a house, maybe, but not in fashion. Designers have to ensure that their brand stays in the real world - like we have, hopefully, with Versus - but then you have to work hard to make sure the creativity survives. In hard times you still have to be extreme. Fashion always has to be about changing and moving forward, to make people dream. My job now is to make our aesthetic evolve while remaining truly Versace - I want to make dresses that every woman wants: sexy and jaw-dropping - I always want it to be relevant but I also want it to be always about glamour."

Asked afterwards how she planned to target the Queen as her next muse, Donatella was reminded of an outfit the monarch recently wore to meet British fashion designers at the Royal Academy - which some mistook for a Christopher Kane design. "Hang on, I have to go and ask him," she said, before rushing off to quiz her protégé about it. "No it wasn't mine," said Chris, "but lots of people asked me the same question".

Perhaps a little Versace in the royal wardrobe isn't such a long shot after all.